September 01, 2004

Reading time ~2 minutes

OK, only had the car 5 days but already I can’t resist getting to work on it.

The airflow from the vents wasn’t quite as powerful as it should be, so I checked the cabin air filter and it was rammed full of cack. I spoke to Bill Anderson at Puravent about a replacement, because the LS400 mark 4 wasn’t listed on the site. I measured my existing filter and Bill found that it was the same dimension as the one in the IS200 and RX300. I ordered it and it arrived the next day.

I don’t know what the stock Lexus filters are like, but the Puravent ones seem pretty good because they’ve got a layer of carbon granules in them, which absorbs bad smells like diesel fumes etc.

Anyway, the procedure…

Open your glovebox and empty it enough so you can see the removable section at the back. This piece just slides up and out.

Behind it is a white nylon panel on the side of the fan housing. There are two clips on the bottom edge of it, you just squeeze them in and ease the panel out, bottom edge first.

The two pieces look like this:

Once the panels are out of the way you will see the edge of the filter:

Click it down to release it…

…then pull it straight out.

Disgusting!

Push the old filter material out of the frame from the bottom, then insert the new filter and push it down into the edges of the frame. The airflow is down through the dash to the fan, so if there is an airflow arrow on your filter (there is on the Puravent one) then it should point downwards. The picture shows the arrows on the side of the filter before I pushed it down into the frame.

Slide the frame back into the slot and click it up into place. Then replace the nylon panel (3 tabs at the top need inserting, then push it home at the bottom). Finally slot the piece back into the glovebox and put all your stuff back in the glovebox. Apart from those sweet wrappers, you can take this opportunity to stick them in the bin.